Santiago

I thought that the reason everything was closed in Punta Arenas on Sunday’s was because it was a small town, but turns out even in the large cities it’s the same way too. On arriving in Santiago our dinner options were seriously limited with any of the recommended restaurants closed. We managed to find Piccola Italia near our hotel, which wasn’t too bad, but I would recommend avoiding being in Santiago on a Sunday instead.

It was odd being in a large, hot city again. I missed the cold air and open spaces of Patagonia. We had a morning tour of the city looking at some of the key sights, watching an elaborate changing of guard at Palacio de la Moneda, driving up Cerro Chacarillas, instead of going up Cerro San Cristobal, for a view over the city, wandering around Parque Bicentenario watching the black neck swans and being taken to a Lapis Lazuli ‘factory’, which was really just a shop.

Our tour finished at Mercado Central with most of us eating at El Galleon restaurant, as recommended by our guide. Even though it really was targetting the tourists, the food was actually really good. Not surprisingly the menu was mainly fish and seafood since we were at a fish market. The market itself was interesting to have a quick look around, but it got a bit irritating with all of the touts trying to get you to go to their restaurant.

As we wandered down to the metro station, there was a line of red tents that all contained tarot card readers, and to my surprise they were all busy, with people from all walks of life.

One of the things I liked about Santiago was the park that ran alongside the river and continued along the main avenues, it was also a great spot for a run. Being in Chile there were still many stray dogs around, but this time one excitedly joined us for our run along the river, waiting while we crossed roads and staying with us even with other runners around. It was nice to have a pretend dog even for a short while. I was worried he would try to follow us into the busy streets, but he stayed in the park when we crossed the road to head back to our hotel, he knew where he liked being.

We still use the Lonely Planet guidebooks a lot and try to use recommendations from people, but unfortunately for us this didn’t work out so well in Santiago. One of the Lonely Planet highlights, and highly recommended by other people was having a drink at the W Hotel terrace bar watching the sunset. When we tried this, we discovered that the terrace bar had been closed for at least a year, so we had to make do with the sunset from street level. It never occurred to us to check it was still open, so just shows how quickly things can change. We did at least make it to a highly recommended restaurant, Liguria, and it deserved the praise. The food was lovely, but we probably ordered too much, and the staff were very friendly and helpful.

It was swelteringly hot in Santiago, but that still didn’t stop us from spending the entire day walking from our hotel in Providencia all the way down to the GAM, passing by a playful fountain, up over Cerro Santa Lucia, around Bella Vista to look at some street art and back to our hotel again. There were a good number of stops on the way, finishing with a fantastic pisco mule at Backstage Life in the Patio Bellavista area, definitely deserved.

Santiago had a nice feel to it as a city, but we were looking forward to some cooler weather again.